Senior Mapping Engineer - Autonomous Vehicles at NVIDIA

You're a seasoned Software Engineer with at least 8 years of experience developing for autonomous vehicles, particularly in in-vehicle firmware or map integrati

Work type: onsite

Location: US, CA, Santa Clara

Salary: $184,000 – $356,500/yr

Type: Full-time

Summary

You're a seasoned Software Engineer with at least 8 years of experience developing for autonomous vehicles, particularly in in-vehicle firmware or map integration, and hold a BS or MS in a related field. **What makes it worth a look...** This is a full-time, on-site Senior Mapping Engineer role at NVIDIA in Santa Clara, CA, offering a strong annual salary range of $184,000 to $356,500, plus equity. **You might be a good fit if you...** * Are highly proficient in C++ for performance-critical embedded systems and real-time constraints. * Have experience with embedded platforms and real-time operating environments like QNX or NVIDIA's Orin/Xavier. * Understand autonomous vehicle software architectures and how localization, perception, and planning systems consume map data. * Possess strong Python skills for tooling and automation.

Job Description

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join NVIDIA's Autonomous Vehicle Map Team. The map is the spatio-temporal prior for on-vehicle driving models, enabling autonomous vehicles to continuously improve performance on frequently driven routes. In this role, you will develop and build production-grade on-vehicle map integration solutions. These solutions let perception, localization, and planning use SD/HD maps in real time. You may also contribute to cloud mapping pipelines that generate and maintain these maps. We are looking for outstanding engineers passionate about building intelligent systems for self-driving cars, with expertise in embedded software, real-time systems, and C++ performance optimization. If you're excited about building the systems that enable human-level AI for navigation, this is your opportunity to make an impact.

What you'll be doing:

• Build C++ modules for in-vehicle map connection with perception, localization, and planning systems to enable real-time map consumption and validate map impact on driving performance

• Work with embedded systems and real-time constraints to optimize map parsing, query APIs, and memory management on NVIDIA platforms

• Design and implement map query interfaces that provide low latency for lane geometry, routing graphs, and spatial lookups consumed by autonomous driving software

• Integrate cloud-generated maps with on-vehicle stacks to enable end-to-end validation of map quality and measure driving performance impact

• Develop Python and C++ tools for on-vehicle testing, map data validation, debugging, and performance profiling

• Collaborate with perception, planning, and localization teams to understand requirements, build APIs, and ensure maps are accurately accessed by autonomous driving software

• Support cloud mapping pipelines (Airflow, Python) for map generation, quality detection, and validation workflows as needed

• BS or MS degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)

• 8+ years of proven experience developing in-vehicle firmware, time-sensitive platforms, or map-to-vehicle integration for autonomous driving

• Strong C++ programming skills for performance-critical embedded systems, memory optimization, and real-time constraints

• Experience with embedded platforms and real-time operating environments (NVIDIA Orin, Xavier, QNX, or similar)

• Understanding of autonomous vehicle software architectures and how maps are consumed by localization, perception, and planning systems

• Experience debugging and profiling performance on embedded hardware with memory and timing constraints

• Strong Python programming skills for tooling, testing, and automation

• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to debug complex embedded and real-time systems

• Experience with Protocol Buffers and efficient data serialization for embedded systems

• Extensive experience with SD & HD mapping and deep understanding of map data formats

• Production experience integrating maps with perception, localization, or planning systems in autonomous vehicles

• Expertise in real-time C++ optimization including memory management, cache optimization, lock-free algorithms, and deterministic performance

• Experience with computer vision concepts (3D geometry, point clouds, structure-from-motion) and how they relate to map data

• Experience with Airflow, Docker, Kubernetes and cloud map pipeline development

You will also be eligible for equity and [benefits](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/benefits/).

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until April 17, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy. 

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

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